A few more Louisian photos

Cafe Du Monde (our Romanian waiter is in the photo behind Archie and me in the Cafe) his cousin and cousin's wife and the New Orleans Skyline at night, also a picture on the riverfront. Do not miss the Cafe, neither the coffee nor the beignets will disappoint you.

Garden District photos of New Orleans

Here are some photos from the Garden District and also a picture of the trolleycar we rode in.

New Orleans

We went to New Orleans on Tuesday had beautiful warm weather didn't even wear a jacket. Archie's cousin Max and his wife Sherry went with us. We walked the Riverfront that was built for the Olympics, the moonwalk, also walked all over the French Quarter, took photos and ateonJackson Square then rode the trolley to the Garden District, then had coffee and beignets at the Cafe Du Monde, and took some interesting photos on Bourbon St.

Britton Hill, Florida High Point

Hard to imagine another one has come and will soon pass. Haven't been able to get to my blog for a bit. Work was really busy and this week on vacation I have very limited internet access ( it isn't in the condos we are in here actually). Ziggy is now over 50 points and has two placements ( a first and a second) towards his ASFA title. Hope he picks up some more this coming weekend in GA.

My hiking and climbing partner Archie and I have decided to see how many of the high points in the US we can make. Of course we did Clingman's dome. This week we did another of them Britton Hill in FL, photos here.It is a whopping 345 feet above sea level, and while it isn't a mountaineering expedition, it is one you have to go to if you want to start checking them off. We are going to drive to Lake Charles, LA tomorrow to visit Archie's daughter and his grandchildren and will hit LA's high spot Driskill Hill ( spot where Bonnie and Clyde were killed) on the way back to TN.

We went to New Orleans Tuesday and will put that in another blog entry with photos from there. It was great fun and just what I had hoped for.

My housesitter says I have 5 baby lambs, (there were 3 when I left). He said they are all up and playing.

Ziggy

Ziggy ran today and was 2nd of 4 so he has 2 of his placements now and 54 of the required 100 points. The photo was taken by Umarapiti. Ziggy is in the blue blanket at the top. The red dog is Fox who managed to behave and qualify although he didn't get points on Friday, and at the bottom is Cholla who ran well enough on Sunday and behaved thank goodness and qualified for his first 4 ASFA points. All went well

Last weekend

went well, Ziggy ran alone got 4 more ASFA pts and experience on the lure alone last Saturday,

Yesterday, 11/27 he ran at the MAWA trial that was the day before the regional (91 dogs ran) and was 3rd of 5 after 2 runoffs so now he is up to 42 pts and one first. His prelim today was only so so but he ran hard and clean which is always a worry with young Borzoi. Fox got his first field trial experience yesterday too and ran clean so for that we are very very thankful!

Just discovered a truly dreadful website. People of Walmart , oh MY GOD like a train wreck you don't want to look but you can't look away.

Headed Out This Morning

Hoping for good weather, headed to Cartersville for an ASFA trial with Ziggy dog. Hope he behaves. I always worry until they get out of open and then sometimes after that. Had a pleasant surprise last weekend when he picked up 28 points and a first at his first trial.

Two New Horse Paintings

Some of those fancy Gypsy

V
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More new paintings

The only thing to do when everyone is going crazy is what relaxes you which is painting for me. Here are four new ones. One I call Old Town Pueblo, Sorrel in the morning ( maybe I'll paint some more horses), and two on 5x 7 inch panels, Big Bend TX and spring in NM

Such Furor

My God you would think we were sacrificing virgins on Main Street to read the heated posts that have erupted since ASFA accepted Silken Windhounds to run in Limited Stakes ( an exhibition only status stake) . Sure they did start out as Borzoi crossed to small lurchers but 5 generations later of DNA typing and breeding one to the other you would think that this would be a moot point. No one is trying to replace any breed with them, no one is saying they are an ancient breed, only that hey we'd like to bring them out and pay the money and let them run and then go home with them. Other than breeding type to type and DNAing every single dog used in breeding, I cannot imagine what other requirements would really be needed to insure a registry is "secure". If I were a drinker, I think I'd be doing that.

Two New Paintings

A "lone bull" and my interpretation of White Sands, NM

Wahoo! Stryx wins a major!

Heard that Stryx (Avalon Valkyrie Stryx O' Pendragon JC, FCH) pictured here won her first major yesterday in Springfield MO under sighthound breeder judge Charles Trotter owner handled by her breeder Debb Meyer. I am SO proud of both of them. Stryx' sire is our DC Avalon Kilimanjaro Delsol SC,RN,LCM3,SGRC and her dam is CH Avalon Irkalla of Davidoff. She is a cute little (28 inch) self mahogany brindle and now needs a 3 pt major and 2 singles to finish. Her brother Syrus finished in the ring about a month ago and is ASFA pointed as well. Thanks to Rebecca Neal for this lovely photo

Make Lemons of Lemonade

Well my PBR weekend got blown out of the water but instead of being glum, I decided to make the best of it. Went to work Thursday got a lot accomplished and scheduled new projects for November and December. Friday I groomed some of the critters, cleaned house some, took off my trash, the usual array of fun. Had a great pork tenderloin ( marinated with garlic and pepper) in the freezer so thawed it and invited Archie over for dinner. Tasty O.

Saturday morning we got up took a 2 mile walk with Zee dog and Vger in preparation for my upcoming trip to NM the first week in January (hopefully) .Then we thought we'd go shopping and did. Found some cool bargains, and actually got to climb a mobile rock wall around 25 feet high that was in front of a store having a promotion ( it had a self belayer) then came home found one of my critters (Cholla) had an injury on inside of his right front leg so cleaned it and gave him a shot of long acting penicillin hoping to set him right.

We will be doing the rock wall thing again, that was way fun. The people there seemed pretty excited to see two middle aged people do it as the only ones previously in line were small children and college kids.

Unfortunately this morning (Sunday) I got ready for church headed out the door and found Cholla hopping around on three legs so the leg isn't better looks like he goes to the vet tomorrow, will have to leave work early.

Jon Daily rocks!

Oh my God this is SPOT ON satire. Would love to see Glen Beck's response

The Decisions of a Dog Breeder

As you progress through any hobby, hopefully if you stay involved you get "better" in some way at your hobby. For me the consuming hobby since 1985 has been Borzoi. When I first got one that year, I didn't think about breeding the breed but in 1991, I bred my first litter of one puppy. Well, you only need one if its a good one. Barney was that. He was my first homebred champion and field champion, a Best in Field winner and winner of the Borzoi Club of America triathlon in 1995. He set the bar pretty high both for any dogs that would follow and for me I think as a breeder. Wrong pedigree he shouldn't have run, it shouldn't have been a good combination,I shouldn't have been able to do the things that I (a perpetual peon in the dog fancy)did with him. He was the one that taught me a lot, like YOU CAN TOO do that but YOU WILL NEVER DO IT if you don't show up and try.

The longer you live the more you realize you don't know about some things, and the more you realize you don't have to know everything, you just have to know the difference. There is very seldom only one "right" way to do things although many people want to believe that and not only believe it but they want to sell that bill of goods as a fact. Not me, I am nothing if not a believer in a good bit of laissez se faire in others day to day lives. Mother Theresa had a great quote, I believe it goes something like this, "Judging others makes you too busy to love them." I think the second option is the better one.

Nebraska

It is COLD here and windy. Fun trial and over at noon. Tomorrow a little bigger. I'll be flying home tomorrow night getting home around midnight after a two hour drive from the Nashville airport.

Omaha,NE

is COLD and rainy. Brrrrrrrrrrrr. The flights to Memphis and then on to Omaha were on tiny little planes that only seated 60 people. Eeek. Scary.

New Paintings

Ok been wanting to paint something purple so went for Tucumcari Mt in NM at sunset. Then as a project did an Alpine lake alongside someone else. Theirs is significantlydifferent of course although they both started the same. Last but not least, a North Florida swamp.

Winter Itinerary

Oct 31-Nov 1 judging an ASFA event in Omaha,NE
Nov 5-Nov 8 ProBullRiding finals in LV,NV
Nov 13, 14, 15-Columbia KY for ASFA (I think)
Nov 21 & 22-open
Nov 26-Thanksgiving (one with Archie and his children and grandchildren, and hopefully one with my son his wife and her parents, egads too much food to think about)
Nov 28-ASFA Region 7 Regional judging
Nov 29-ASFA trial GA
Dec 5 & 6 AKC show in AR (maybe this is tentative)
open the rest of the month probably working Christmas and Christmas Eve to build comp time hopefully will leave Dec 30 for New Mexico and be gone through Jan 8 or 9.

GA Lighthouse

My first lighthouse.

Latest Painting

A fence in West Texas. Enjoy!

SNAKE!!

Common garter snake that is. Last Friday I am trying to get ready to leave for a couple of nights in Nashville for the District 63 toastmasters convention ( by the way I won 3rd place in the humorous speech contest at the district level there) and Archie picks up a bag of garbage in the kitchen that I was going to take off before we left and he says "Hey there is a snake in here". He is pretty calm, I am not. I run in there and lo and behold there it is. He says you want me to kill it? My guts are saying kill the thing but fortunately (for the snake) my head said hey those things eat mice and bugs. It's a garter snake. So I said no don't kill it. He's like so um what are you going to do with a snake? I caught it in a tupperware container and threw it outside. Boy do those things have a temper it continuously tried to strike at me through the plastic container. Blech

SCREAMFEST

Oh my GOD! My mother is visiting me this week doing some house hunting for possibly moving from FL. She had found this haunted house here in Sparta open on weekends until Halloween. I checked into it found that it was being run by some Farmers Association and benefitting the Agricultural Relief Fund. So after watching PBR on Versus tonight (Wahoo Marchi did make it to finals!) at 9 PM we set off for the haunted house ( barn actually). Thinking that it would be some cutesy made up thing and hokey. Well, I spent 20 some odd minutes of solid screaming at the top of my lungs. I think I blew out a vocal cord ..... or two. Man, it was dark, I couldn't see where to go, there were things that felt like spiderwebs hanging in my hair, at one point there was a room of what looked like snakes everywhere and snake noises. I'm not wanting to walk forward and then there are people running out with chainsaws and machetes. I am screaming as loud as I can trying to create a wall of noise I to repel them. My mother is behind me pulling on my jacket with both hands screaming when I do. At one point she says oh my God never listen to me, oh my God this was a horrible idea. I'm screaming they're everywhere my God I can't see how to get out of here. At one point as she is pulling on my jacket and it comes unsnapped I briefly give thought to running out of my coat I am such a chicken, OH MY goodness it was a great scare. If anyone in the middle TN area is a fan of haunted houses, I highly recommend it.

Egads

You know if you are ever waiting for a bitch to come in season SHE WON'T or a different one will. Sigh........ waiting and have been for Charo or Autumn to come in and they show NO signs but Lara may be. Lara is Avalon Solarra SC, FCH, JOR and the plan is to breed her to BIF FC Avalon Victorian Pyre SC, RE, FCH, GRC, TT, CGC, TDI RTD next spring so of course she is challenging my plans.

Lighthouse Rock painting Palo Duro SP TX

Last November I visited Palo Duro SP in TX on my way to NM. Took a bunch of photos including a couple of the rock formation called "the lighthouse" there, thinking I'd want to paint it or have it painted. Just painted it. Just realized it looks like a huge sandstone penis. Oh my.

Happy Happy Joy Joy!

Just heard from my friend Susan Van De Water of Del Sol Borzoi that our Tigress (Avalon Tigress in the Dark JC, FCH, GRC, CC ) won her second conformation major today at a show! Wahoo! Thought I'd inflict her photos on ya'll. She is

an open field coursing champion with three takes, a straight racing champion, an ASFA field champion and winner of the Borzoi Club of Greater Atlanta triathlon (conformation match, straight racing and lure coursing) in 2006.

A new painting

As you all recall I have picked up a brush again and am painting so here to bore you some more, cottonwoods on a river somewhere West of the MS river where there are mountains